School property is considered a high traffic area in which students and parents often enter and leave on a daily basis. For elementary schools, many parents walk their children to school in the morning and pick them up in the afternoon. Each drop off and pick up involves entry and exit of school property. For secondary schools (e.g., middle school or high school), students often transport to and from school property with little or no assistance from their parents.
Entry to school property conventionally involves two stages of access. The school property may be conceptually separated into two zones: 1) a school building and 2) school grounds on which students or parents, or both, enter to access the school building. For instance, the school grounds may include the land surrounding the school building.
During school hours, access to the school building in many jurisdictions is strictly controlled. Entry into the school building may be limited to a single point of entry, which may be monitored or controlled, or both, by school personnel. Before and after school hours, access to the school building may be less restrictive so that a person can enter or exit, or both, the school building from multiple points (e.g., multiple doors located at different parts of the school building). As a result, an intruder may enter the school building more easily outside school hours, such as just before school hours when students are entering the school building and after school hours when students are leaving the school building.
Access to the school grounds in many school systems is largely permissive so that nearly anyone can enter the school grounds at any time of the day. Other than during recess or lunchtime, the school grounds are largely unmonitored so that an intruder (e.g., a person not authorized for entry on the school grounds) can enter the school grounds unnoticed. During recess or lunch, school personnel may notice the intruder and instruct him or her to leave. But otherwise, in many jurisdictions, an intruder can enter the school grounds passing through this zone without detection.
To counter the possibility of intruder access to the school grounds, some jurisdictions have installed a physical barrier, such as fencing. With this approach, one or more points of entry may be monitored or controlled, or both, so that an intruder can be stopped from entering the school grounds before attempting to enter the school building. Although some success has been achieved with this approach, many jurisdictions have chosen not to install such a physical barrier for a variety of reasons, including for example cost and perception. For instance, installing fencing about a perimeter of a school building can provide the look and feel of a jail rather than an educational environment.